Fruit, vegetables and a sense of community taking root with free food park in City Heights

Sam Tall, who works with his father, Bill Tall, owner of City Farmers Nursery, gives a hands on lesson on planting immature plants to Naomi Mitchell, 7, Stacy Quintero, 13, and Emmanuel Mitchell, 10. The free food park is on El Cajon Boulevard and Central Avenue in City Heights.

It’s an idea taking root in progressive cities across the country and world: Plant fruits and vegetables in public spaces, organize volunteers to maintain the garden and provide anyone in need access to a steady supply of free food for the picking.

The so-called Free Food Movement launched its latest effort on Saturday, when business leaders and neighborhood volunteers broke ground on the newest — and largest — free food park in San Diego.

The public garden, at the northeast corner of El Cajon Boulevard and Central Avenue in City Heights, features five bathtub-sized planters and three fledgling fruit trees. Organizers hope that by fall or winter, the starts planted Saturday will bear fruit for the community.

“It sounds a little crazy, but it’s cool to be able to walk down the street and pick a fresh tomato on the way to the bus stop,” said Kelly Colt of Eat San Diego, the community group that spearheaded the garden.

Colt, who lives in City Heights and works as a research associate on Torrey Pines Mesa, said she co-founded Eat San Diego to help build a sense of camaraderie in her adopted community.

“I wanted to make a positive change in the neighborhood,” she said. “I feel like it just needs a little love and it will be a really great place. I wanted something that everyone could share because we don’t really have anything like that in City Heights.”

Organizers expect to produce a variety of produce, including tomatoes, peppers, broccoli and kale. They plan to adjust the offerings as the seasons progress, adding, for example, squashes in the fall.

The garden opened with assists from the El Cajon Boulevard Business Improvement District and some nearby businesses, who donated supplies and pledged to help water the garden as the weeks and months pass. Organizers tend to seek out public spaces for the free food parks so they don’t have to worry about leases, landlords or unwelcome liabilities.

Bill Tall of City Farmers Nursery was on hand to plant the first batches of cucumbers, rainbow chard and yellow pear tomatoes. He said he remembered when there was a 200-plot community garden at nearly the same site before it was plowed over to make room for Interstate 15.

“They said they would relocate it, but that never happened,” Tall told the two dozen or so onlookers at the ceremony. “This is an awesome project. I’m proud to be a part of it.”

The Free Food Movement dates back to at least 2008, when community organizers in the northern English town of Todmorden proposed planting fruits, vegetables, herbs and other edibles at train stations, in parking lots and anywhere else they could think of.

Today there are free food parks in Seattle, Boston, San Francisco, Madison, Wisc., and Asheville, N.C., among other U.S. cities. Even before Saturday, there were a handful of tiny food parks — call them pilots — here in San Diego.

Mixte Communications in Ocean Beach planted a tiny free food park near its office on Voltaire Street, where visitors are urged to try the Okinawan spinach and tree collards.

At Folk Arts Records, the vintage music shop 10 or so blocks west of the new free food park on El Cajon Boulevard, owner Brendan Boyle stewards a garden of baby tomatoes planted outside his front door.

“I know they do get picked,” he said of his bounty. “The fun part is I have some customers who are really into gardening and they ask questions and point things out. This store is a little bit of a community space here so it definitely brings a smile to some of my customers’ faces.”

Colt said she is still recruiting volunteers to help with the watering, no small task given she has yet to reach a deal with neighboring property owners to use an existing spigot or install a new meter.

In the meantime, she’ll bring water in by hand.

“It’s right along my commute, so it’s not bad,” she said.

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